


The Church Bells in France Ring Loudest on Sundays

by atmilliways



Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Fluff, Genderfluid Aziraphale, He/Him Pronouns for Aziraphale, I'm sorry France but suitcase clones are a thing, Multi, Vineyard Theft, Wedding Fluff, What else am I supposed to do with my wine industry knowledge, World War I References, World War II references
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-28
Updated: 2019-08-28
Packaged: 2020-09-28 07:49:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,299
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20422466
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/atmilliways/pseuds/atmilliways
Summary: Three times Crowley and Aziraphale ran into each other in vineyards, one time Crowley took too long selecting wine, and one other time in France.Or: Theirs is a relationship built on quite extraordinary amounts of caring about... alcohol.





	The Church Bells in France Ring Loudest on Sundays

**Author's Note:**

> A fair number of vineyard tours in California probably feature some story or other about how the vineyard manager once took a trip to France, snuck out amongst the vines in Burgundy and other grape-growing regions while all the locals were in church, and snuck out with vine clippings to graft onto rootstock once they got home. 
> 
> You mostly start hearing these stories once the statute of limitations runs out, but hey. Sometimes natural disasters come along and wipe everything out, and sometimes it's because of suitcase clones that they don't just go extinct.
> 
> Anyway, I had the idea for the silly last bit and then all this other stuff came out too.

* * *

_— Côtes du Rhône, 1864 —_

* * *

“Aziraphale, is that you?”

It’s not the first time Crowley has asked the question, but this is one of the last places he would’ve expected to have to ask it. Running into his quote-unquote adversary on Earth is one thing, but he never would have expected to bump into him in a deserted vineyard, practically ankle deep in mud, taking cuttings of the vines. On a _ Sunday._

The angel jumps and whips around, hurriedly stuffing the clippings into a bag and hiding it behind his back. “Crowley,” he says faux cheerfully, eyes darting around warily as though he’s _ sure _ that the very hounds of Hell are about to turn up as backup to the demon’s surprise greeting. “Ah… how lovely to see you. It’s been ages, hasn’t it. What brings you to France?”

There are a number of things Crowley could say in response, but the actual answer to the question is that he got bored and popped over to see if he couldn’t show some teenagers over in Marat or somewhere how to tip cows, and it’s not going to be that. Nor will it be that he got as far as just outside Lyon, tasted the air, immediately caught the scent of a certain familiar angel on a southeast breeze, and came immediately to investigate. In the end, he just shrugs. “Not much. You?”

Aziraphale huffs, reddening to the roots of his platinum hair. “Alright, alright,” he says, aggrieved, “I’m _ stealing. _Congratulations, you’ve caught me red-handed. _ But, _I’ll have you know, if your side hadn’t kicked off all this aphid blight business I would _ not _ be doing this!”

_ (The Great French Wine Blight of the mid-nineteenth century was, in fact, the work of neither Hell nor Heaven. It was brought about by a particular type of aphid — humans have never quite been able to agree on which genus — and, if better understood might have illuminated quite a bit about the nature of free will in non-human species.) _

“Blight?” Crowley actually blinks behind his sunglasses. First time this decade. “I thought that was your lot. Figured God got ‘tetchy’ again and decided to rain down misery on all the winegrowers for something or other. It’s got nothing to do with _ me,” _ he adds, frowning a little into the implication that he would do anything to impact the world’s alcohol supply. For one thing, he wouldn’t; for another, it stung a bit to be so unfairly misjudged. 

Immediately the look on Aziraphale’s face softened. “Oh, I’m quite sorry. I thought since you… Well, that’ll teach me to leap to conclusions, I suppose.”

“You really,” Crowley said dryly, “ought to embrace lying a little more. Or at least deflecting the question.” He looked around casually, inspecting the vines around them for any signs of disease. If there had been he would be able to see it, that was one of his skills. “So, collecting some lucky survivors in that little ark you’ve got there?”

“It’s hardly,” Aziraphale began, looking guilty again. 

“If you could use a hand,” the demon interrupted, “I’ve heard it works better to do these things in twos.” He flourished his hands and produced a similar suitcase, black with red stitching and immaculately stylish compared to Aziraphale’s cream colored, rather well-worn bag. 

Aziraphale brightens at once, relief replacing the blush. “Oh, would you? There are so many different kinds of just this one varietal, you know, and there are so many growing regions I still have to get to. I was hoping to spirit most of them safely away somewhere for preservation.”

_ (In this instance it was Grenache, one of the several notable varietals indigenous to the area. There are around twenty-five unique clonal variations of this type of grape; Aziraphale’s concern stems from the fact that this is fairly middle of the road. Older varietals such as Pinot Noir have closer to fifty.) _

“Any thoughts on where?” Crowley asks. He’s miracled up a set of hedge trimmers and is looking around for his first victim. The trick to spotting different clones of grape vines is in examining the leaves and, of course, the individual molecules. 

“I was thinking the Americas. California, or Oregon, perhaps.”

“Hm. Sounds like an interesting enough place to go on holiday.”

In the distance, church bells are ringing and all of the good Catholic countryside, from vineyard owners to farm hands, is seated dutifully in their pews. 

* * *

_— Epernay, 1914 —_

* * *

“Crowley, what in Heaven’s name are you doing here!” 

The voice is hoarse from shouting over the sound of artillery fire, but Crowley would know it anywhere. His head snaps up from the large sack in his hands. “Aziraphale?”

A bombshell goes off nearby, and they both wince. 

“What are you _ doing?_” the angel repeats urgently. 

“Trying to make sure there’s still some wine left on the off chance we end up having nothing to do but swill beer after this. What are _ you _ doing?” Crowley retorts, having always felt that the best defense is a good offense. The German soldiers trying to take the nearby cathedral seem to have the same idea. 

_ (So did French propaganda at the time. Crowley had been quite proud of his suggestion to a few key newspaper editors and politicians that the war could be rebranded as a means to preserving the country’s vines against invasive German barley and hops.) _

Aziraphale gestures in the general direction of the band on his jacket sleeve that marks him as a medic. “Trying to keep people from killing each other so efficiently.” The strain of it is evident around his eyes and unsmiling mouth. Crowley doesn’t think he’s ever seen the angel with anything caked under his fingernails before, and does _ not _ want to know what it had come from. 

“Trade?” Crowley offers. He doesn’t know why he’s said it, starts wondering about it as soon as the word is past his lips, but Aziraphale looks so grateful that he’d rather be discorporated than take it back. “They’re not going to be able to finish the harvest without a few good miracles thrown in, I’d say, and it’s been a while since I’ve had a good excuse to saw anyone’s limbs off.”

_ (Usually Crowley left that sort of thing to demons like Ligur, Duke of Hell, who actually enjoyed a good maiming. It had to be done, apparently, and he didn’t see the point in taking messy assignments when he didn’t have to and there were so many eager volunteers queued up behind him. But, modern medicine of the time being what it was, there were exceptions that he felt negated the good done by, for example, removing the danger of blood poisoning or gangrene.) _

“Would you?” the angel asks fretfully, as though he’s not sure the idea is entirely sound but is still sorely tempted to accept. “I wouldn’t want to impose—”

Crowley waves him off to the sound of more gunfire. Incidentally, he also switches their clothes, leaving Aziraphale looking rather disgruntled to be out of uniform and suddenly in nondescript farming attire. “It’s done, angel,” and he hands him the bag. “Finish up, and you can buy me a bottle or several of this vintage once the war is over.”

In the background, glass shatters and bits of stone are splintered off the face of Reims cathedral. 

* * *

_— Burgundy, 1944 —_

* * *

“Aziraphale, for Satan’s sake, get _ down!_”

They both go tumbling to the ground at the demon’s urgent hand on the back of Aziraphale’s coat, rolling safely into a ditch that separates two sides of the same vineyard as the distant call of _ j’attaque _ rang out and the French First Army begin their attack. 

“Crowley,” the angel sputters. “My goodness, you gave me quite a turn.”

“Quite a—” Crowley breaks off with a glare through his sunglasses. He’s rather fond of them, as they remind him of the kind he’d worn in his Roman days, and spares a brief passing thought for forcing the frames back into shape. “What did I tell you about messing about with Nazis?” he snaps, snatching his hat up from the ditch floor and shoving it back atop his head. 

“Well,” Aziraphale replies with a prim, clearly disapproving look at the other’s uniform. 

“Shut up.”

“I didn’t say a word.” The angel sniffs and straightens his own, quite different outfit of a _ sous-lieutenant_. “And I wasn’t messing about with them at all. I merely made sure the French were aware that the enemy was quartered in some inferior vineyards, and suggested that it wouldn’t be quite such a loss to viticulture if they attacked them there now and beat the vile aggressors back.”

_ (This hadn’t been so much a suggestion as a clever exploitation of the way the commanding French general — and, indeed, all French citizens in general — felt about Burgundian wines. Had the confrontation taken place in any of the greater vineyards, the country would never have forgiven _either_ side.) _

Crowley considers this a moment, then breaks into a huge, satisfied grin. 

“And who do you think made sure that’s where they ended up?”

* * *

_— Soho, 2018 —_

* * *

“Crowley, are you going to be all night in there?”

One of the bookshop’s crowded back rooms functions as Aziraphale’s wine cellar. Like the rest of the shop, the conditions are not technically ideal for storing this sort of thing, and yet everything is perfectly preserved. Crowley has been wandering amidst the shelves for some time, examining different years and vintages and regions thoughtfully. There’s something that’s been burning a hole in his pocket — well, in a hidden drawer in his flat, anyway — for quite a while, and while it’s not exactly time _ yet_…

His idly skimming fingers land on one that has 1914 etched into the glass. To one side of it are some interesting looking wines that look to be from pre-Prohibition America, and to the other side are several more from France, around the end of World War II. He smiles. 

“Yeah, coming,” he calls back, hefting the bottle in his other hand that he’d picked out nearly a quarter of an hour ago. “Wouldn’t want you to go without your nightcap, angel. After today I’d say we’ve both earned it.”

* * *

_— Dordogne, ???? —_

* * *

“Aziraphale, where are you!”

Crowley bursts through the door, one hand clapped over his eyes lest he see anything he’s not supposed to, dressed only in shirtsleeves and black silk boxers, a strip of fabric dangling from the fingers of his free hand. 

“You’re not supposed to be in here,” Aziraphale gasps reproachfully, spinning around in place in front of the room’s floor length mirror. He relaxes as soon as he realizes the demon isn’t _ looking_, though. “Oh… What seems to be the trouble, my dear?”

“I can’t get this right,” Crowley replies, aggrieved. “You’re better at this sort of thing, _ you _do it.”

Aziraphale presses his lips together fondly against the observation that the other could just miracle the bow tie into place. He’s also quite sure that the demon knows how to tie a tie perfectly well and is just fussing due to nerves. Which is really quite sweet, regardless of the fact that the request for help was in fact phrased far more like an irritated demand. 

“Alright, stand there and I’ll come to you. And _don’t peek_, I’ll know if you do. It’s bad luck.”

“That’s just a stupid human superstition,” Crowley complains, but obediently stays still and doesn’t move the hand covering his eyes while the angel bustles over. “I like bad luck, anyway. I _ am _ bad luck.”

“You’re no such thing.” Aziraphale takes the tie and leans forward. He has to be careful that the fabric bunched around his waist doesn’t give away too much about what he’s wearing, though the rustling of skirt layers is perhaps a clue. 

“I am,” Crowley retorts, probably going for threatening but landing more on petulant. It’s not every day that he asks for help, but this is important, bless it. 

When the tie is tied and positioned to the angel’s satisfaction, he puts his hands on each of Crowley’s shoulders and leans onto his tiptoes to give a quick, chaste kiss. Naturally, the demon counters with something less chaste, but Aziraphale allows that. Let him get it out of his system before the ceremony, even if it’s a small one and not that many people would end up seeing anything potentially lewd. Speaking of which...

“Now,” Aziraphale says, pulling back only slightly out of breath, “go finish getting dressed. “It’s almost time, and you don’t want to be late.”

“I do,” Crowley says with a smirk, but this one is more of a joke. Aziraphale swats him on the backside as he saunters back out of the bridal suite. 

Alone again, Aziraphale turns back to the mirror and regards himself critically once more. The ballgown style was a good choice, he thinks, and his intended has hardly ever seen him with long hair before. It required some adjustments of his human shape to fill certain parts of the dress the way they were meant to be filled, but he likes it. He thinks Crowley will like it too. 

A breeze trickles in through the open window and the angel glances out at the view — warm and sunny in tones of honey-coloured stone and vibrant green rolling hills. As the bells of the nearby cathedral begin to toll the hour he remembers another Sunday, ages ago, some four hundred kilometers away, and smiles. 

_ (Crowley had only agreed to a Sunday wedding because it was the best day of the week to steal vine clippings from local vineyards. (Without getting caught, anyway.)) _

The coiled silver engagement band on his finger could be a snake, or it could be a vine. Aziraphale wouldn’t have it any other way. 


End file.
